


like a demon uninvited

by fawnlike (amainiris)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mind Games, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22566520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amainiris/pseuds/fawnlike
Summary: It’s almost obscene, what they do next; Will tells Hannibal no, no, Abigail is just around the corner, in the bookshelves, within earshot -- but it just urges the doctor on, stripping off his fine coat like a sleek skin and tossing Will’s glasses to the side table, drawing him down to the long sofa. The clock is ticking, the moon is waning, and in horror and arousal Abigail watches them unravel each other there, mouths on throats and necks and lips, the sound of pants unzipping natural as a kiss.And Abigail stands in the shadows, humiliated and seething and outmatched, a hunter whose prey was claimed by someone more adept than she.What if Abigail knew from the beginning?
Relationships: Abigail Hobbs & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham & Abigail Hobbs, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109





	like a demon uninvited

**Author's Note:**

> Another thing I decided to write out of boredom -- I hope someone can enjoy!

She hates him because she met him.

That’s it.

That’s all it took.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


To Abigail, autumn has always been that season of renewals, rebirth. 

Hannibal stole her from that too.

Now she knows -- now, she can map out the circumstances aligning for their meeting, address his predatory grace with another hunter’s raised hackles, that innate hostility. It’s almost a kind of respect, she thinks, or tries to think. But then, it’s also possible that the only one that Hannibal respects is Will Graham.

Highly likely, actually.

She feels sick when she watches them, especially when they’re ten million fucking miles away in their own little world made for two. Will is oblivious, half-in-love from the outset, even if he doesn’t know it (and Abigail does; she absolutely does). Hannibal, meanwhile, has never been oblivious, and at dinner she watches his dark glass of Monastrell absorb all the light, sees his gaze linger on Will in a way it never lingers on her. Everything about him is so carefully calculated, so breathtakingly orchestrated -- she knows, because in some ways she’s the same -- but she also knows he didn’t entirely bargain on Will Graham.

One night, after Will has left and Hannibal has given up on pretending to drive Abigail back to the hospital and they’re standing unmoored in his beautiful kitchen, he seems to consider her honestly for the very first time since her parents’ deaths.

“Do you know what the flaw in desiring anything is, Abigail?”

It startles her; he just spent an entire evening in conversation with Will, ignoring her insomuch as he possibly could, courteous and calm and cold.

“What, Dr. Lecter?” It’s a mockery and Hannibal knows it, but he doesn’t reward her.

He smiles very thinly, showing no teeth, with all the rictus of a death mask. “It makes us weak.” 

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


His cleverness enrages her, in a way, but every predator has a blind spot.

And the hunting cat’s is in its peripheral vision.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


“Will.” She hates to prey on compassion, but she has no choice. If she had to choose anyone to be her pawn, it certainly wouldn’t have been Will Graham. It wouldn’t be, she tells herself, trying to rationalize, to compartmentalize as Hannibal does -- _but then,_ she wonders, will that make her even more like him?

“What is it?” They’re alone in Hannibal’s office; the afternoon light is buttery and warm, spilling a gleam onto Will’s dark curls. He looks younger than he is, she thinks suddenly, feeling the faintest gleam of guilt; but guilt has never stopped Hannibal. 

“I miss you; you’re never here.” Such an easy way to unmask someone, to tell them that you need them.

Sometimes Abigail hates this part of herself.

“I’m right here. I haven’t left.” 

She’s so tired of people telling her they’d never leave when they were never really there. And though Abigail is good with secrets, skilled at swallowing them down like keys, in that moment -- looking at him, smudged glasses and open expression, like the man he was before Hannibal ever met him -- she wants to say everything she knows. She can feel her tongue jump against the palate of her mouth, a paroxysm of desire. Not the kind of desire that Hannibal feels for Will. Something purer; something true.

Like what she’d felt for Marissa.

“Can you hold me?” 

Will goes absolutely still; not only because she’s never asked it of him before, not only because Abigail is notoriously resistant to touch, but because he himself is not fond of embracing others. A test, then, she thinks as she grits her teeth. 

_Do you care for me at all?_

And then his arms are going round her, gently, with the softest sweetest parental assurance, and now Abigail really is crying, except she doesn’t know why. She leans into him, tucks her head under the sharpness of his chin, and tries to swallow down the trembling. This part isn’t a lie. All of this is real.

So much like Abigail herself, so much like the hunger that only grows fiercer the more she feeds it.

“What if I told you something you wouldn’t believe?” she murmurs, trying not to gasp into tears. “What if I told you something that would ruin everything, and it’s all my fault?” 

“None of this has been your fault.” His voice is a cadence, a lullaby. Abigail wants to stand there until he tells her he must go. Because, in time, he will.

They all do.

“What if I told you that Hannibal isn’t the man that he pretend--”

And then the door is opening, perfectly-oiled on its hinges -- everything about Dr. Lecter is so breathtakingly well-engineered, after all -- and Abigail leaps back as if she’s been caught doing something very, very wrong. She’s fast, it seems, but not fast enough; as she recedes into the shadows Hannibal ignores her and walks towards Will, before kissing him brutally on the mouth, a hand gripping sternly the younger man’s jaw. Will gasps into it -- and that weakness, that _weakness_ \-- is just Hannibal’s way of telling her that she’s lost again.

That she always will.

It’s almost obscene, what they do next; Will tells Hannibal no, no, Abigail is just around the corner, in the bookshelves, within earshot -- but it just urges the doctor on, stripping off his fine coat like a sleek skin and tossing Will’s glasses to the side table, drawing him down to the long sofa. The clock is ticking, the moon is waning, and in horror and arousal Abigail watches them unravel each other there, mouths on throats and necks and lips, the sound of pants unzipping natural as a kiss. Hannibal directs the other man underneath him, brushes away (so gently) the curly brown hair, kisses the back of his neck before taking Will as he’s no doubt taken him countless times before.

And Abigail stands in the shadows, humiliated and seething and outmatched, a hunter whose prey was claimed by someone more adept than she.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Hannibal may know where she lives, but Abigail knows where he sleeps.

On the balls of her feet, an astonishing knife of Hannibal’s gleaming in the shards of moonlight through the windows, she makes her way towards his bedroom. Once outside she coaches herself to stillness, for her heart is racing a thousand times a minute and she isn’t sure why. What, now, does she have to lose?

Slowly, slowly, she opens the door -- and nearly drops the knife.

Hannibal is sitting fully-dressed on the edge of his gorgeous bed, the light through the windows making his sharp cheekbones hideous, too prominent to be believed. And Abigail almost stops breathing.

“I’ve always known you’re partial to knives, Abigail.”

“Just like I’ve always known I’m going to kill you.”

“You don’t even know why you’re doing this.” That voice, calm and placating and infuriating, more-than-vaguely accented, intoxicated with all the sureness of authority. Hannibal is leonine and brilliant in the dimness, not concerned at all (he’s never concerned), even as she holds the knife in her hand. Brandishes it against the shards of moonlight.

“I do.”

How had she ever been afraid of who she would become?

“You killed her,” Abigail continues, feeling the traitorous tears spark in her eyes. “Don’t pretend you didn’t. And you knew what she meant to me. You know everything, don’t you?”

“Not everything,” Hannibal says, and his eyes are on the knife, and it sounds strangely like an admission.

“Are you afraid now?” She asks because she has to know. “Are you finally as afraid as she was?”

There is a long silence, as if he’s truly considering the question, giving it the weight it deserves. And then;

“No. No, I’m not afraid.”

Abigail wants to burst into tears. She doesn’t.

“I killed your friend,” Hannibal says, and now he’s rising, and drawing nearer, and stupidly Abigail drops the knife to the ground. “But I have no interest in killing you.”

Now he’s so close that she can smell the musk of his cologne, see the preternatural darkness of his eyes. Abigail doesn’t dare to breathe; and the anger has seeped from her like blood. How she wishes she could despise him.

“Why not?” she asks, and her voice is unforgivably weak.

“Because,” he says in simple response, brushing back the loam-dark hair and briefly cupping her delicate white ear. “Because you’re just too much like me.”


End file.
